On Monday, reading the newspaper, the young man felt relieved: He wasn't
the only one. The priest at his childhood parish had abused somebody else.

The next day's news turned his relief to rage. The Archdiocese of Washington
had known about the priest's pedophilia long before assigning him to the
parish, St. John the Evangelist in Clinton.

On Thursday, the young man and the victim he had read about told their
stories to Prince George's County police.

Detectives in Montgomery County spoke this week with a third man who
told them he also was molested by the Rev. Thomas S. Schaefer, one of
four Catholic priests removed from their parish assignments last month
by the Archdiocese of Washington after they admitted sexually abusing
a minor in the 1970s. One, the Rev. Alphonsus Smith, admitted abusing
a second youth for five years beginning in 1988.

Eight alleged victims have contacted a Chicago-based support group called
Survivors of Clergy Sexual Abuse Linkup Inc. since the dismissals were
revealed. Church officials said that they have spoken with "a handful"
of alleged victims this week but that they will not comment on specific
allegations until they have conducted their own investigations.

The ousted priests -- Schaefer, 69; Smith, 70; the Rev. Edward B. Pritchard,
50; and the Rev. Edward Hartel, 58 -- served in a total of 24 parishes
in the District and its Maryland suburbs, starting with Schaefer's arrival
at Holy Name Parish in Northeast Washington in 1953.

The priests, all four of whom also are under investigation by police,
were being treated at undisclosed facilities and could not be reached
for comment. Their dismissals, announced last weekend, have reverberated
through the local Roman Catholic community. Those who were interviewed
about their alleged abuse -- as well as their relatives and other parishioners
-- said they are filled with bitterness and a sense of betrayal.

"I was his pet for three or four years, and everyone knew that,"
said the former altar boy from Clinton, now 29 and living in Northwest
Washington. "He used to take me to other parishes, and I'd have dinner
with all these priests, bishops, everything. All these men knew [Schaefer's
history], and none of them ever came to me and said, 'How's it going with
Father Schaefer?' "

He said he told police that their furtive encounters often took place
in the priest's bedroom while they counted the collection together.

Other alleged victims and parishioners said the violation of physical
abuse is magnified by a priest's exalted status.

"If you're a Catholic child in a Catholic school, priests are above
man. They're your link to God," said a 34-year-old Bowie woman who
grew up attending Church of St. Matthias the Apostle in Lanham, where
the abuse that led to the ouster of the four priests occurred.

As a child, the woman worked in the convent after school. Her brothers
were altar boys but have told her they were not molested. Her devout parents,
she said, are devastated.

"They had this blind trust and this blind faith, and now their eyes
have been opened," the woman said, requesting anonymity out of respect
for her mother and father. "They thought they were putting their
children in a safe haven. And everything they were trying to keep their
children away from -- maybe not everything, but a big chunk of it -- they
were pushing them into."

The sister of the former altar boy who spoke with Montgomery County police
Thursday now has children of her own. They attend the parish elementary
school at St. Andrew the Apostle in Silver Spring, just as she and her
brother did in the 1960s.

On Wednesday, before putting them to bed, she told her children that
no one -- not even a priest -- could touch their private parts, which
she described to them as the sections of their bodies that are covered
by a bathing suit.

"They know that something happened to [their] uncle and that it
was a priest -- a sick, bad priest" -- who did it, the woman said.

To help parishioners cope, the archdiocese held meetings this week at
St. Matthias and at Our Lady of Sorrows in Takoma Park -- the parishes
where the abuse that the priests admitted occurred -- and at the parishes
where the priests were assigned most recently.

The Bowie woman said the St. Matthias meeting began with a bishop apologizing
on behalf of Cardinal James A. Hickey, echoing a column Hickey wrote in
this week's Catholic Standard. An expert in pedophilia discussed the causes
of the disorder and how to recognize signs that a child has been victimized.
Emotions ran high.

Some parishioners wept and demanded to know why Schaefer and Pritchard
had been reassigned to parish duty after being treated for pedophilia,
she said.

Archdiocesan officials have said that in returning the priests to duty,
they followed the recommendations of therapists who treated them. Until
the mid-1980s, pedophilia was considered curable, they said. Experts now
say that child molesters should never work with youngsters again.

Hickey has removed any priest accused of pedophilia since the late 1980s
from posts where they have contact with children, archdiocesan spokeswoman
Dawn Weyrich Ceol said. But alleged victims and parishioners interviewed
this week said that is not enough.

"My question is are they now going to go back and search the files?"
the Bowie woman asked. She said she and others at the St. Matthias meeting
urged church officials to remove from ministry any priest with a history
of pedophilia, here and around the world.

The Washington Archdiocese would not say whether it is considering such
an action.

The former St. Matthias altar boy whom the four priests admitted abusing,
now 34 and a business executive living in the Baltimore area, said he
is willing to press charges. Detectives said they are searching for a
youth from Our Lady of Sorrows whom the archdiocese said Smith admitted
molesting from 1988 to 1993.

And there is the 29-year-old man from Clinton who came forward this week,
after learning about the two others. He said he would testify in court
if necessary about the times Schaefer allegedly molested him from 1978
to 1982.

The man said he told police this week that on a typical Sunday, he would
help the priest officiate at Mass, turning the pages of his Bible and
bringing the wine and wafers for Holy Communion. In the afternoon, they
would go upstairs to Schaefer's sitting room, the man said, and sit in
leather upholstered chairs to count the collection.

The first time, he said he told police, the abuse occurred as he sat
on Schaefer's lap in the sitting room. Later, he recalled, Schaefer would
take him into the bedroom. He said the priest often hinted that he was
preparing him for a relationship with a woman. Afterward, they went out
for dinner, often to the Watergate or the Holiday Inn in Old Town Alexandria,
he said.

The man said he waited eight years to confide in someone about the alleged
abuse, which ended when he stopped serving as an altar boy at age 16.
He told his fiancee, who eventually broke up with him, saying she feared
that he would abuse their children.

Fifteen months ago, the man -- a self-described nomad who said he attended
eight colleges but never graduated -- went to a lay leader at St. John's
with his allegations. She tried to get him to call the archdiocese, but
he resisted, insisting that going public would not help him.

After reading about another former altar boy this week, he changed his
mind. He said he decided it might help someone else.

PARISHES WHERE FOUR PRIESTS SERVED

Four priests were stripped of their authority last month after they admitted
sexually abusing a former altar boy. A look at the area parishes where
they had worked: